Annalee Newitz

This is probably the most demented patent idea you will ever see. Artist Tom Giesler makes patent drawings for a living, creating images for inventors of who work in biology and information technology. As an artist, he turns those patent drawings into the stuff of parody and nightmare, generating patents for things like a "method and device for recognizing and vaporizing decoys serving to disguise targets with the aid of a stylish mobile terrestrial search head." There's this one, which is a truly demented image of what almost looks like a real network arrangement. Until you notice the weird heap of computers in the lower right, and the strangely unhappy computer sort of hovering over the heap. As a lover of patent drawings anyway, I completely relish fake patent drawings that call attention to the absurd way people try to claim ownership of ideas (tellingly, Giesler calls this series of images "my IP"). Another of Giesler's series, recently featured on BoingBoing, looks like drawings for medical textbooks that were written by people on crack. You can check out more of Giesler's demented patents - for things like the "consumer device for non-lubricated globule mashing and packaging." Of course, you can look at his drawings for real patents too, some of which are almost indistinguishable from the fake ones on the preposterousness scale. Thanks, Grey Area!